Grotesque
Since at least the 18th century (in French and German as well as
English), grotesque (or grottoesque) has come to be used as a general
adjective for the strange, mysterious, magnificent, fantastic,
hideous, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus is
often used to describe weird shapes and distorted forms such as
HalloweenHalloween masks. In art, performance, and literature, however,
grotesque may also refer to something that simultaneously invokes in
an audience a feeling of uncomfortable bizarreness as well as
sympathetic pity
[...More...]

Loggias
A loggia ( /ˈlɒdʒiə/ or /ˈloʊdʒə/; Italian: [ˈlɔddʒa])
is an architectural feature which is a covered exterior gallery or
corridor usually on an upper level, or sometimes ground level. The
outer wall is open to the elements, usually supported by a series of
columns or arches. Loggias can be located either on the front or side
of a building and are not meant for entrance but as an out-of-door
sitting room.[1][2][3]
From the early Middle Ages, nearly every Italian comune had an open
arched loggia in its main square which served as a "symbol of communal
justice and government and as a stage for civic ceremony".[4]Contents1 Definition of the Roman loggia1.1 Examples2 See also
3 Notes
4 References
5 External linksDefinition of the Roman loggia[edit]
The main difference between a loggia and a portico is the role within
the functional layout of the building
[...More...]

Villa MadamaVilla MadamaVilla Madama is a prominent rural house or villa built during the
Renaissance.
The villa situated half way up the slope of
Monte MarioMonte Mario to the west of
Rome, Italy, a few miles north of the Vatican, and just south of the
Foro Olimpico Stadium. Even though incomplete, this villa with its
loggia and segmented columned garden court and its casino with an open
center and terraced gardens, was highly influential for subsequent
architects of the High Renaissance.Contents1 Construction
2 Legacy and gardens
3 Ownership after completion
4 Further reading
5 External linksConstruction[edit]
Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, cousin of the reigning pontiff Leo X,
commissioned the initial design of the villa from Raphael
[...More...]

Raphael Sanzio
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino[2] (Italian: [raffaˈɛllo ˈsantsjo
da urˈbiːno]; March 28 or April 6, 1483 – April 6, 1520),[3]
known as
RaphaelRaphael (/ˈræfeɪəl/, US: /ˈræfiəl, ˌrɑːfaɪˈɛl/),
was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work
is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual
achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur.[4] Together
with
MichelangeloMichelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional
trinity of great masters of that period.[5]
RaphaelRaphael was enormously productive, running an unusually large workshop
and, despite his death at 37, leaving a large body of work. Many of
his works are found in the Vatican Palace, where the frescoed Raphael
Rooms were the central, and the largest, work of his career
[...More...]

Mother NatureMotherMotherNatureNature (sometimes known as
MotherMotherEarthEarth or the Earth-Mother) is
a common personification of nature that focuses on the life-giving and
nurturing aspects of nature by embodying it, in the form of the
mother.Contents1 Western tradition history1.1 Greek myth
1.2 Ancient Rome2 Indigenous peoples of the Americas
3 Southeast Asia
4 Popular culture
5 See also
6 References
7 External linksWestern tradition history[edit]
MotherMotherNatureNature image, 17th century alchemical text, Atalanta FugiensThe word "nature" comes from the
LatinLatin word, "natura", meaning birth
or character (see nature (innate)). In English its first recorded use
(in the sense of the entirety of the phenomena of the world) was in
1266 A.D.
[...More...]

Raphael's Rooms
The four
RaphaelRaphael Rooms (Italian: Stanze di Raffaello) form a suite of
reception rooms in the palace, the public part of the papal apartments
in the Palace of the Vatican. They are famous for their frescoes,
painted by
RaphaelRaphael and his workshop. Together with Michelangelo's
ceiling frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, they are the grand fresco
sequences that mark the
High RenaissanceHigh Renaissance in Rome.
The Stanze, as they are commonly called, were originally intended as a
suite of apartments for
PopePope Julius II. He commissioned Raphael, then
a relatively young artist from Urbino, and his studio in 1508 or 1509
to redecorate the existing interiors of the rooms entirely. It was
possibly Julius' intent to outshine the apartments of his predecessor
(and rival)
PopePope Alexander VI, as the Stanze are directly above
Alexander's Borgia Apartment
[...More...]

Vatican Palace
The
Apostolic PalaceApostolic Palace (Latin: Palatium Apostolicum; Italian: Palazzo
Apostolico) is the official residence of the
PopePope of Rome, which is
located in Vatican City. It is also known as the Papal Palace, Palace
of the Vatican and Vatican Palace. The Vatican itself refers to the
building as the Palace of Sixtus V in honor of
PopePope Sixtus V.[2]The Portone di Bronzo at the Vatican
Apostolic PalaceApostolic Palace entrance.The building contains the Papal Apartments, various offices of the
Catholic ChurchCatholic Church and the Holy See, private and public chapels, Vatican
Museums, and the Vatican Library, including the Sistine Chapel,
RaphaelRaphael Rooms, and Borgia Apartment. The modern tourist can see these
last and other parts of the palace, but other parts, such as the Sala
Regia and Cappella Paolina, are closed to tourists
[...More...]

Classical Orders
An order in architecture is a certain assemblage of parts subject to
uniform established proportions, regulated by the office that each
part has to perform".[1] Coming down to the present from Ancient Greek
and
Ancient RomanAncient Roman civilization, the architectural orders are the
styles of classical architecture, each distinguished by its
proportions and characteristic profiles and details, and most readily
recognizable by the type of column employed. The three orders of
architecture—the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian—originated in
Greece. To these the Romans added, in practice if not in name, the
Tuscan, which they made simpler than Doric, and the Composite, which
was more ornamental than the Corinthian. The architectural order of a
classical building is akin to the mode or key of classical music, the
grammar or rhetoric of a written composition
[...More...]

Giovanni Da Udine
Giovanni Nanni, also Giovanni de' Ricamatori, better known as Giovanni
da
UdineUdine (1487–1564), was an Italian painter and architect born in
Udine. A painter also named Giovanni da
UdineUdine was exiled from his
native city in 1372.[1]Contents1 Biography
2 Stucco Discovery
3 Gallery of Bird Drawings
4 References
5 External linksBiography[edit]
As a student and assistant of Raphael, he was responsible for most of
the "decorative" (i.e. non-narrative) elements of the major
Raphaellesque projects in Rome, and he was a specialist in fresco and
stucco grotesque decorations. These included the stucco work in the
Loggia di Raffaello (Vatican, 1517–1519) and the heavy fruit-laden
wreaths in the loggia di psiche in the Villa Farnesina. He also
assisted in the construction of a few monumental fountains, which are
now destroyed
[...More...]

Maiolica
Maiolica, also called Majolica[1] is Italian tin-glazed pottery dating
from the Renaissance period. It is decorated in colours on a white
background, sometimes depicting historical and mythical scenes, these
works known as istoriato wares ("painted with stories"). By the late
15th century, several places, mainly small cities in northern and
central Italy, were producing sophisticated pieces for a luxury market
in Italy and beyond.Contents1 Name
2 Tin-glazed earthenware
3 History of production
4 Gallery
5 See also
6 References
7 Bibliography
8 External linksName[edit]Istoriato charger, Faenza, ca 1555 (Dallas Museum of Art)The name is thought to come from the medieval Italian word for
Majorca, an island on the route for ships bringing Hispano-Moresque
wares from Valencia to Italy
[...More...]

Piccolomini LibrarySienaSienaCathedralCathedral (Italian: Duomo di Siena) is a medieval church in
Siena, Italy, dedicated from its earliest days as a Roman Catholic
Marian church, and now dedicated to the Assumption of Mary.
Previously the episcopal seat of the
DioceseDiocese of Siena, from the 15th
century the Archdiocese of Siena, it is now that of the Archdiocese of
Siena-Colle di Val d'Elsa-Montalcino.
The cathedral itself was originally designed and completed between
1215 and 1263 on the site of an earlier structure. It has the form of
a Latin cross with a slightly projecting transept, a dome and a bell
tower. The dome rises from a hexagonal base with supporting columns.
The lantern atop the dome was added by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The nave
is separated from the two aisles by semicircular arches
[...More...]

UrbinoUrbinoUrbino (Italian: [urˈbiːno]; listen (help·info)) is
a walled city in the
MarcheMarche region of Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a
World Heritage SiteWorld Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of
independent
RenaissanceRenaissance culture, especially under the patronage of
Federico da Montefeltro, duke of
UrbinoUrbino from 1444 to 1482. The town,
nestled on a high sloping hillside, retains much of its picturesque
medieval aspect. It hosts the University of Urbino, founded in 1506,
and is the seat of the Archbishop of Urbino
[...More...]

Francisco De HolandaFrancisco de HolandaFrancisco de Holanda (originally Francisco d'Olanda; 6 September 1517
– 19 June 1585) was a court painter, architect, and sculptor for the
Portuguese King João III, and later for Sebastian of Portugal. He is
considered to be one of the most important figures of the Portuguese
Renaissance. Francisco was also an essayist, architect and historian.
He represented the intelligible reality of the
Holy TrinityHoly Trinity through a
"hypothetical" syntax of geometrical figures.[1] He insisted on the
contrast between the ideal plane, the incorporeal form and the
"imperfect copy in the terrestrial zone"
[...More...]

Architrave
An architrave (/ˈɑːrkɪtreɪv/; from Italian: architrave "chief
beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον
epistylon "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the
capitals of the columns. It is an architectural element in Classical
architecture.
The term can also be applied to all sides, including the vertical
members, of a frame with mouldings around a door or window
[...More...]